With advancement of information society, access to information has been further accelerated and an amount of access to the information has been increasing. Also, enhancement of hardware performance and an increase in a degree of integration of an electronic circuit have made it possible to produce further smaller hardware.
With such development in technology, small and high performance terminals such as a smart phone, a tablet, and a personal computer (PC) that enable computing and the Internet have been widely distributed. Such terminal enables a user to access information without restrictions on a time and an occasion by providing access to a computing environment and the Internet.
In order to provide a service, a terminal may use a variety of applications (App) based on a service to be provided. An application may not be independently executed in the terminal. The application may be executed on a platform that is an operating system (OS) of the terminal. Accordingly, the application needs to be developed based on a development interface and a development language that are provided by a supplier of a predetermined platform. The developed application may be executed only on the predetermined platform.
Currently commercialized representative platforms may be iOS of Apple, Android of Google, and Windows Mobile of Microsoft. The above platforms have been produced based on a personal PC environment having OSs, such as Mac, Linux, and Windows, respectively. An application of each platform has been developed using a computer programming language that is provided based on an OS corresponding to a platform. Accordingly, each of applications may use a different development language and a different application programming interface (API).
It is very complex and inconvenient to configure a single application environment by unifying different application languages and APIs. Also, when configuring the single application environment, it may not make the most of characteristics of each platform of a terminal.
High-tech mobile terminals such as a smart phone, a tablet, and a PC may use high performance computing resources through cloud computing without restrictions on a time and an occasion. Also, a personal cloud service for using a variety of services such as synchronization, storage, and restoration of personal data and contents has been developed.
As cloud computing can be expected to be in the mainstream of future mobile computing, a variety of cloud services may be integrated into a mobile terminal. A mobile cloud indicates combination of a cloud service and mobile computing. In response to providing of a mobile cloud environment, research on a zero-client and thin client model using a mobile terminal is ongoing in order to overcome platform dependency of the mobile terminal, functional constraints, and constraints of performance by employing the mobile cloud environment.
Unlike an existing computing environment depending on independent hardware performance of each terminal, cloud computing refers to technology that integrates resources of computers present in different physical locations using virtualization technology, and provides the integrated resource. As clouding computing is used, a program or a document individually stored in a PC and a server of a company may be stored in a large-scale computer accessible through the Internet. In order to use a cloud service such as a web browser of a mobile terminal, a user may execute a required application and may perform a desired work through the executed application.
A thin client system is a concept in which 1) a user terminal includes a minimum required number of apparatuses, and 2) a central server is in charge of storing and processing data and executing software. Currently, the thin client system may realize desktop virtualization that is representative cloud computing technology generally.
In desktop virtualization technology, a client may be managed through session management technology of a server or a virtual machine that is driven in the server, and the like. Execution of software may be completely performed in a server or a virtual machine of the server. A result screen that is generated in response to execution of software may be transmitted to a terminal of the client.
By applying thin client technology based on cloud computing, it is possible to overcome a disadvantage of a mobile terminal having a relatively short amount of resources.
However, since a variety of services are provided at the same time in which a concept of a mobile cloud has been established, platform dependency such as mutual compatibility between services, portability, and security becomes an issue.